This was my first Dead show. I was a junior at Oregon State University and a bunch of us drove down from Corvallis. New Riders of the Purple Sage opened for the GD. Ventilation was poor as I recall and the smoke was thick. Before the concert a promoter announced "if you are having a bad trip look for someone with a white arm band. They are from White Bird and can help you". Later in the evening I saw White Bird carrying out a guy with a white arm band on! I still chuckle about that. Anyways it was my first of many Dead shows and my last one would have been in Eugene in 1992 but it was cancelled due to Jerry Garcia's health.

No Highlights

I just have to address something I see alot here....people complaining about unfavorable reviews.

The Dead, god bless 'em, were FAMOUSLY an inconsistent band. If ever there was a band that sometimes delivered one-star shows, it was this one! They also delivered plenty of ten star shows! But having the "negative" reviews is very helpful to the person who wants to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I agree that it isn't the Dead's fault if a tape is poor quality....but if a tape is particularly trying, I can understand it getting a lower rating. For instance, I was listening to a 1972 show in which the mix was just so bad (no Phil, no Keith, lots of bass drum mixed on the right channel, etc....) that, if I was to rate it, would definitely have factored into how many stars I'd give it.

(on the other hand, I do think people go way overboard with giving a stellar show a poor rating because there's hiss on the tape, or because the mix isn't exactly the way you like it - my comments above notwithstanding).

I appreciate a thoughtful review that says "the band wasn't clicking this show".....having attended many Dead shows where the Dead weren't clicking, I can immediately understand what the reviewer means! (though, it's all in the ears of the beholder, ultimately!)

Check,,,

I don't get some of the deadhead reviews below. The sound is distorted. Doesn't sound good. Wow. Big deal. It's the music behind it you're listening to that we're rating. You rate the music not the sound quality, or that's how I see it anyway, and as far as I'm concerned the music sounds great. You got to go beyond the recording to the music. How you can judge the qualify of the music based on a recording and give it a low rating is beyond me.

Listen to Pig on vocals and Jerry's guitar on Har to Handle.

It's five stars, guys, for that alone! The others are like icing on the cake.

Brokedown Palace is pretty damn cool too. I think you guys ought to listen to the music and quit judging the recording it came from. That's not the dead's fault.

Too bad the entire Lane Commmunity College show doesn't circulate. According to The Torch, the school's newspaper, the Dead's set went on for over 2 1/2 hours, ending at 2AM. "Fantastic but Crowded" was the headline. Unfortunately no songs are listed besides the opening "Casey Jones." So we are only left with the fragment.

My first Dead show, rumor was they oversold the venue which is why we were packed, SRO, unable to dance or even shuffle, little room to breath. New Riders opened and, as the auditorium packed tighter and tighter, the sound board cranked it up louder and louder. When the Dead came on they took up, volume-wise, where the New Riders left off.
At some point the sound had me in physical pain; I looked around and I wasn't the only one covering my ears.
I'm pretty sure this show is one of the reasons I wear hearing aids today. Well worth the price.

If you read your history lesson you already know that the campus they played at was in the Pranksters "back yard"...with that said i believe that what you hear is the band straight "trippin-boo"!!! They are clearly exploring their own psychadelia. Sounds raw and full of ideas to me!!!!

This sounds like the recording my dad made of the show onto a reel to reel he brought and recorded with. Now the problem with it is the reel to reel tape he used was a previously used tape and that is why the tape doesn't sound so great, but it does get better as you get more into the tape. I did transfer this to digital a few years ago about 99. I'll have to listen to this to verify for sure.

Amazing... simply amazing... much emotion and well played.

The sound quality is not that bad really.

5 stars XD

There is something to be said for the initial onslought of Jerry Garcia's solo. It's reminescent of a train rolling down the tracks. I recommend it for that alone.

Ok, I don't review many shows, usually just ones where I feel that I have something different to offer. This happens to be one of those times. Sure the sound isn't that great, but it's still better than most of my old boots from the 70's-80's, and with about 1-2 minutes with a crude, unsensitive eq, I was able to make this quite listenable. Furthermore, I'm not sure what the other reivewer meant by uninspired, I didn't see that either. Perhaps he just couldn't here the music through the low sound. Brighten it up, and the music turns out to be quite good too. During the HTH solo, Jerry tries to break it down, not fumble and restart, and the rest of the band follows along. There is a period of about 3-5 seconds where they seem to bring it down lower than they though, which they quickly (at Phil's insistance) correct. I think others may be missing some of what it is that attracts many people to the Dead's music. It isn't perfect because they make every effort to make it expressive, and different than the night before. Also, one of the things that make their music so wild is they could lose the theme to a song, break it down to nothing but feedback, and from the ashes, resurrect the jam, song, or hit into something else entirely. Sorry to ramble, but i don't think this show deserved the harsh criticism of the last reviewer. I would give this show 3 stars for sound (not good, but mostly enhancible) and 3.5 for a 71 performance (too many other fabulous shows this year to count). I give it 4 stars here only to offset the 0-1 star reviews.

I read the txt file before dl'ing so I knew I was in for a muddy time of it, but I didn't expect such an uninspired show to boot.

The HTH is awful. Jerry has to keep restarting his leads in the jam because nobody is in sync. The "theme" falls apart after 2 or 3 rundowns, so Jerry backs off and Phil leads into it again, only for the same fallout to occur. Thoroughly disappointed in the show, irregardless of the quality.

Sound: C-
Show: C- (at least they showed up...)

well, historically this is wonderful- especially for family who have lived in Eugene... but, as for sound quality... uhhh... not exactly built for the high-fi, this one...

Just listen to the Ken Babbs introduction. It all sounds this way. Don't bother downloading these files. I won't award any stars; but we are forced to do so...